A major scandal? Data center NDAs? Esquire lauds insanity?

Allegheny County’s district attorney says an investigation into Pittsburgh’s finances suggests millions of dollars in public money is missing.
The money, purportedly spent on contracts by former Mayor Ed Gainey’s administration, could be unaccounted for, Steve Zappala told reporters last week. Financial documents show money spent but no tangible “work product” has been found thus far, he said.
As the Post-Gazette reported it:
“Zappala said his investigators have ‘absolutely’ found evidence that money was inappropriately accounted for or taken. ‘You’re talking millions of dollars from different accounts, different contracts, different schemes,’ he said.”
The DA says the contracts are for “important purposes — helping kids, helping seniors” and “targets the minority community substantially, and these services are not being provided.”
Among them, reportedly, a program designed to address youth violence.
Where’d the money go? Zappala suggests it was used for “personal stuff … bank accounts … credit cards – that type of thing.”
If true, it’s despicable.
A search warrant related to the investigation remains sealed. The DA says the investigation still could take “months.”
But if charges are filed, it could be one of the biggest cases of alleged public corruption in decades in the erstwhile Steel City.
“Yowzer!,” more than a few observers in Yinzerville are saying.
Spotlight Pa reports that some data center developers are pushing some Pennsylvania officials to sign nondisclosure agreements (NDA) regarding their proposed operations.
Worse, the P-G says some public officials are agreeing to the restriction. But others, fully understanding they work for the public, have refused.
Good for them.
For sound public policy to be sound, there must be full transparency – none of this “Shhhhhhh! Secret!” stuff.
“Any time a private company tries to limit what a public official can say about public business, that’s a red flag,” Melissa Melewsky, an attorney with the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, told the media outlet. “It is limiting the free flow of information from public officials about public business. It’s not a private transaction.”
Data centers have been touted as the be-all and end-all for economic development around the commonwealth and nation. But all is not roses and endless cash flow in data center development and operations.
Our advice to any government jurisdiction told that signing an NDA is the price of doing business should, first, make that demand public then, second, run the other way.
The execution of sound public policy demands nothing less.
If you want a glaring example of bad “journalism,” look no further than to the current, Aug. 19, edition of Esquire magazine in which the reporter says “Pittsburgh might just be the most dynamic city in America.”
It’s a rose-colored glasses look at a city beset by long-anemic population and economic growth numbers; the damage wrought by one-party political rule and organized labor’s grip on elected officials; a city school system that is an absolute embarrassment and government’s steadfast insistence that Pittsburgh’s only problem is a lack of enough taxpayer money to implement said government’s command economics follies.
Indeed, the Esquire piece highlights many positive things about Pittsburgh in 2026. But an honest look at Pittsburgh must include the many more negative things that have retarded real progress for decades.
The only purpose this kind of chamber-of-commerce “journalism” serves (or, in this case, a story that reads like VisitPittsburgh talking points) are the usual suspects who firmly believe that doing the same things over and over again that don’t work is not insanity.
For shame.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).